How Hard Could It Be?
Please read this before you start. You do NOT have to follow this tutorial to the letter. When I say open a new image 400x400, that is just my suggestion. You might like to work either bigger or smaller. When I say to name your layer a certain thing, you can name your layer whatever you want to name it. The size of your circle and the shades of your colors are up to you also. These directions are my preference and may not be yours. Where you need to pay close attention and follow the directions carefully are the instructions for vectors, bezier lines, nodes, bevels, layers, when to NOT use antialias, and the retouch tool. I want to thank Leigh for her patience in teaching me how to edit those darn nodes!
Open a new transparent image, 400x400. Click on the Shapes tool: Circle/Filled/Vetor/3. Do not have antialias checked. Color setting: Red 255, Green 175, Blue 49. The size of this circle is up to you. Since I'm going to alter its shape, I made mine fairly large.
Now click on the node tool. The what? It's the tool right after the shapes tool. Click on Node Edit. Whoa! My orange poofed! That's what you want to happen. We're going to shape the circle to be more pumpkin like, or as Leigh called it, "butt cheeks. "
You will notice that you have 4 little squares around your circle. Put your mouse over the bottom square. You will see the word Start. Left click on this square. You should now have a line with an arrow on the left and a circle on the right. In the center is a black square.
With the mouse, push this black square up. How much is up to you. Now put your mouse over the arrow on the line. You will see the rotate arrows come up. What you need to do is left click with the mouse and drag down. Do this to the other side of the line where the circle is too.
Go to the top of your pumpkin circle and repeat these steps but drag the left and right sides up instead of down. Now go to the squares on either side of the pumpkin circle and push the sides in a little so the pumpkin doesn't look like a circle anymore.
Once you are done editing the nodes, go to the top toolbar and Layers. When the menu drops down, go down to Convert to Raster. Voila........you now have your pumpkin shape! If you aren't happy, just Undo and edit the nodes again. It took me several tries before I was able to get those "butt cheeks."
